


A Lesson in Layton

by checkmate



Category: Professor Layton, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crack, Gen, I have been meaning to finish this for eighteen months, Sherlock/Layton crossover, sigh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-06
Updated: 2014-04-06
Packaged: 2018-01-18 11:04:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1426174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/checkmate/pseuds/checkmate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A disguise mix-up causes the worlds of Sherlock Holmes and Professor Herschel Layton to clash in the streets of London.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lesson in Layton

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even.

One disadvantage of being a national celebrity is, of course, the press. And after the incident with the deer stalker, it was by no means a surprise when Sherlock was reluctant to don any more disguises to escape the cameras.

“Sherlock, for God’s sake, we’re going to lose his trail!” John yelled, after several exasperating minutes of Sherlock’s stubbornness. Eventually Sherlock agreed, and pulled the top hat on with only the slightest annoyance, while John found a blue cap to hide his face. The disguise worked though; they managed to slip past the paparazzi without them getting a single white flash in their direction.

As soon as they were away from the apartment block that they had tracked Moriarty to, Sherlock began his attempt to figure out where he had gone next.

“Looking for something?” Sherlock and John turned around to see a short man wearing an orange scarf and hosting one of the most fabulous moustaches the world had ever seen. “You might want to try looking in that bin over there.” He said, gesturing to where a collection of large wheelie bins were pushed against the wall in the entrance to an alleyway.

As Sherlock lifted the lid to one of them, a gold coin pinged from inside, narrowly avoiding hitting him in the eye. He jumped back, staring at it, unable to comprehend how it came from inside the bin when there was no visible mechanism. But he picked it up anyway because hey, free gold coins.

The little man chuckled. “Hey there! It seems you’ve found your first hint coin! I’m Stachenscarfen, and you might want to hang on to those for later!”

Sherlock looked at him in disbelief. “Hint coins.” He said incredulously. “What the hell is going on here? Look, whatever your name is. Have you seen a man come down here a few minutes ago? Black suit, dark hair?”

Stachenscarfen looked at him, a smile playing on his lips. “Maybe I did… Maybe I didn’t. I can’t _quite_ remember. Perhaps my memory would be helped by you solving this puzzle for me.” And the stranger thrust a small wooden box, engraved with the number 041, at Sherlock, looking up at him expectantly.

Sherlock sent John a glare that could have curdled milk as he opened the box warily. There was another number engraved on to the inside of the lid- 70 this time, with a word underneath it. John peered at it. “What does that say?” He asked.

Stachenscarfen chuckled. “Those are picarats, my friends. The more picarats a puzzle is worth, the more difficult it is.”

Sherlock studied the puzzle inside. There were a selection of coloured blocks, and one red ball in a grid. “So I get the ball out of the maze?” He said sighing. “Fine.”

Sherlock began moving the blocks around, attempting to calculate and predict the results of each of his moves and invariably getting himself stuck in the corner and unable to move. “Damn it!” He shouted angrily after a good ten minutes of thankless shuffling of the pieces. He pushed the box at John and sulked further down the street.

The doctor decided to take a rather different approach, and set about randomly moving the pieces around the board, and to his delight, solved the puzzle in less than a minute. “Right.” He said to Stachenscarfen impatiently. “Black suit, dark hair?”

The weird little man nodded in thought. “Yes, I saw him. He ran past just a minute or so before you did.”

“ _Where did he go?”_

“Keep your hat on, my boy. He turned right at the end of the road. I would guess he was heading for the old church tower.”

John nodded. “Thanks. _Sherlock!”_ He yelled back down the road, and they set off at a run in the direction Stachenscarfen had indicated.

“Sherlock?” He called after them in surprise. “I thought the Professor’s first name was Herschel?”

John frowned but didn’t hesitate, presuming the man to be just a little off his head, and raced off around the corner with Sherlock, where they found- surprise, surprise- a dead end. “But that man- he said something about a church tower?” John said, trying to catch his breath.

Sherlock ignored him and began poking random parts of the wall, narrowly avoiding another hint coin, which proceeded to hit John right between the eyes, to his displeasure. He pocketed it nevertheless, thinking that if he could sell them at the end of the case, at least he wouldn’t have to keep scamming money off of Mycroft to pay for milk and his rent. “John, there’s a puzzle here. It’s only worth thirty ‘picarats’- solve it; I need to go to my mind palace.”

John rolled his eyes and Sherlock took a large step back, his hands darting up to press against his temples as he silently mouthed string after string of words and phrases. John seriously doubted the effectiveness of this technique, since surely if it meant you could never forget anything, Sherlock would be able to remember that the Earth went round the Sun, but who was John to argue? He took a look at the puzzle on the door lock- it was quite straightforward. He only had to work out which key shape fitted the lock properly, and he solved it in less than a minute.

"That took you a long time." Sherlock remarked, as the door swung open. John tutted- of course Sherlock had already solved it- he was just proving point, as usual.

"Was your mind palace illuminating?" He asked, trying to control his impatience and exasperation.

"Very." Sherlock said, nodding. Obviously, he wasn't going to bother expanding on that. "Off we go!"

The duo ran down the alleyway and easily located the old church tower where Moriarty was supposedly hiding, and curiously enough, all the doors swung open, not even protected by a puzzle as the trend had been. "Do you think this is too easy?" John asked, panting slightly as they climbed yet another flight of steep, narrow stairs.

"Possibly, particularly if even you aren't finding it complex. But it's the only lead we have, and therefore it would be foolish not to follow it."

John knew there was an insult hidden it there, but honestly, by this point, he was completely used to it. Harry always said that the relationship was unhealthy, and that Sherlock took advantage of him. John always replied exasperatedly, that he and Sherlock were not in a relationship, and he wouldn't be taking relationship advice from her even if they were.

And then they were on the top floor of the tower, and there was Moriarty, looking smug as ever. "Hello, boys." He cooed, but not, pointing a handgun at them, as usual, which John supposed made a pleasant change.

"Good evening, Jim." Sherlock said coolly. First name terms, was it now? Obviously, John had missed that particular memo, and apparently Moriarty had too, as his eyes momentarily flickered with confusion. "I'm guessing all those distractions in the street were you?"

Moriarty nodded. "I needed a little bit of time to set this up." He smirked menacing, and a metal cage sprung up from the floor, trapping John inside. Sherlock looked thoroughly unimpressed.

"What was the point in that?" He asked, bored. "So you have my blogger. What are you going to do with him? Cut of his toes one by one until I give myself to the Yard and confess to bring being a fraud? You tried that once, remember, and it didn't work out that great for you."

Now Moriarty looked seriously perplexed, and even John had realised there was something else going on here. “Uh…” He said slowly from behind his bars, as Sherlock looked from him to Moriarty.

“You’re not Moriarty.” Sherlock said as it dawned on him quickly. “The real Jim Moriarty never shows emotion. The real Jim Moriarty _knows_ it to be a sign of weakness. Who are you, and why are you impersonating him?”

A broad grin spread across Moriarty’s, or fake Moriarty’s, face. “It is me, Herschel! It is me, Don Paolo, your number one nemesis, your arch-enemy…” And he proceeded to _peel_ his face off, which was apparently some kind of prosthetic, while cackling maniacally.

It was apparently some kind of really, _really_ good prosthetic, as the man beneath the mask looked nothing like Moriarty at all. There was no way any normal mask could have disguised a nose that huge, or that _hair,_ sticking out in two large, almost horizontal spikes. “I nearly had you fooled, Layton!”

Before Sherlock could interrupt with the information that a) his name was not Herschel Layton, and b) he had absolutely no idea who this man was, the door burst open and two people sprinted in, panting. One was a young-ish boy in what looked like a pale blue school uniform, the other an older man wearing a long brown coat over an orange shirt, with scruffy brown hair sticking up at odd angles.

He looked Sherlock up and down once, and said calmly, “I'm sorry, sir, but I think you have my hat.”


End file.
